Reason to Believe
by Bree Williams
Summary: Jess realizes that Leslie wouldn't want him to go alone. For after all, Terabithia should be shared. Everyone should have a Terabithia, right? Better summary inside. Probably not going to finish this, but if I think of something to write, I will finish.


_**Summary**_

_Three months after Leslie dies, Jess continues to take May Belle to Terabithia. He can't help but to wish that Leslie was still there and that he had never told May Belle about Terabithia. But he realizes that Leslie wouldn't want him to go alone. For after all, Terabithia should be shared. Everyone should have a Terabithia, right?_

_**Author's Note**_

_I had another one up here before with the same title, but I made a few changes and here's the new version. Sorry if you had the other one under your favorites, but this is exactly the same (just with a longer Author's Note and more of the story added). This fanfiction is based off of the movie of 2007 but some things, such as The Old Perkins Place will be based off of the book. I am not very good at writing summarys, and this is my first fanfiction, so please don't be too harsh on my work, and please note that the story may differ from the ideas in the summary. I'm not sure yet of what will come as this story progresses. I will stay true to the movie, but I may add some things that weren't mentioned in the movie but could be deciphered in any which way the viewer chose. So you'll hear about the movie the way that I saw things. And some people think that Jess and Leslie were in fifth grade, and some believe seventh. In the book, Jess and Leslie were in fifth grade and Janice Avery was in seventh grade, but in the movie, Janice was an eighth grader so that Jess and Leslie could be seventh graders. (At least that's what I believe, but if you believe differently just pretend it says they're fifth grade instead of seventh). So in my story, they're seventh grade. I may not be correct for if this is the age that they really were, but that's how my story goes. And another reason why I think that they're more than likely seventh grade is that Josh Hutcherson (Jess Aarons) was thirteen when they were filming and AnnaSophia Robb (Leslie Burke) was twelve. I don't think that they'd hire a thirteen-year-old and a twelve-year-old to play two ten year olds..._

* * *

_Three months_, Jess thought. _Three months and the whole world can change_. He was sitting in the castle stronghold that he and Leslie had built what seemed like three years ago. But really it had only been three long months since Leslie had died. _Why did you have to swing across on that stupid rope?_ he thought, tears starting to fill his eyes. He raised his hand to his face to wipe the tears away before his sister May Belle, the new princess of Terabithia, could see. 

"Jess, I'm bored. There's nothing to do here," May Belle said, tearing Jess away from his thoughts. "What did you and Leslie do here before? Just sit, like us?"

"Of course we didn't _just sit_," Jess replied. "We did all sorts of things. Like, fighting Squogres, or recruiting warriors. But sometimes we did just sit and talk."

Jess went back to his thinking. _We need a place, just for us; Huh?; You know. Where there's no Janice Averys or Scott Hoagers.; Yeah, but when we go back to school, there they are waiting.; Yeah, but some place better than just not being at school. What if there was a magical kingdom that only we knew about?; Oh, I don't know. What if?; Well, what if the only way you could enter it... was by swinging on this enchanted rope?; Enchanted rope?; Yeah, come on! _That day was like a stained glass window painted into his mind. He remembered every word and every sound of that day. He remembered how he laughed at her about the enchanted rope and of how all the while he doubted her about everything. He could see every image of that day, but he could also see through it, see through to the events that it led to. Leslie died because of that "enchanted rope." If only he had continued hating her. Then she wouldn't be dead. If he still hated her, then she would have never led him into the woods where that stupid rope hung. And she would have never insisted on going back every day and then she never would have swung across months later just for the rope to break and send her falling into the creek's sinister waters below.

But if he had always hated her, then she never would have opened his mind to this world where anything could happen. Leslie was the one who took him away from his solitude and became his friend. If Jess had still hated her, she'd still be alive, and he didn't care if having Leslie alive meant that he had to hate her and that this world wouldn't exist. As long as Leslie was alive, he'd give anything.

"Jess. I'm still bored," May Belle repeated several minutes later."Let's do something."

"Okay... Come on. I'll take you to where me and Leslie first found the Giant Troll."

Jess and May Belle climbed down from the stronghold and walked across through the darkening woods to the place that the Giant Troll was discovered. _How big do you think it is? _Jess remembered Leslie running forward to the immense footprint in the earth. _That's how big its feet are_.

May Belle wasn't too interested in looking around at the place, and so turned her attention to the cloud-filled sky. The clouds got darker and then tiny soft raindrops begun to fall.

"We'd better get home. Mom will throw a fit if we come home soaked in rainwater," Jess said after a while of listening to the whispering rain.

Jesse and May Belle ran home through the now pouring rain, reminding Jess of all the tears that he cried because of Leslie. Before she'd come to Lark Creek, Jess had been afraid of everything. But Leslie had opened his mind and showed him that anything could happen if he believed. But Jess couldn't believe that she was gone. He just wouldn't let himself believe.

When they reached the house and went inside, they got into some dry clothes. Jess went up to his room that he shared with May Belle, and May Belle followed him.

Jess pulled his sketch book out from under the covers of his bed and opened it, studying all the pictures he had in it. Many were pictures of Terabithia. He drew most of them before Leslie had died, and so most of them showed Leslie. In one drawing, Leslie was standing in the castle stronghold holding her arms up with the bright stiped pink and blue armwarmers and the blue pegasus shirt she wore. She was calling to the prisoners of the Dark Master, and they were answering her through the wind, just like what happened on the day they first discovered Terabithia.

"Jesse! May Belle!" Mrs. Aarons called from downstairs. "It's time for dinner!"

After hearing Mrs. Aarons' call, May Belle rushed down the steps. Jess stuffed the sketch book back under his bed covers, then slowly walked down the steps, still trying to believe that Leslie was still alive. She had to still be alive, right? Of course. Without Leslie, Terabithia was nothing. Even May Belle noticed. Terabithia couldn't live without her...

Neither could he.


End file.
